


(de)construct

by yesterday



Category: Hustle Cat
Genre: M/M, Mildly Dubious Consent
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-13
Updated: 2016-04-13
Packaged: 2018-06-01 23:49:09
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,142
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6541789
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yesterday/pseuds/yesterday
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Relationship status: it's complicated.</p><blockquote>
  <p>Graves hisses, yanking at Nacht’s hair in consternation. He has to force himself to relax. “I do <i>not</i> appreciate that.”</p>
  <p>“Mm? Ah, my bad. Forgot ya don’t actually have something stuck up there all the time.” Still, Nacht doesn’t let up. “Always remembered you liking it a l’il rough.” </p>
</blockquote>
            </blockquote>





	(de)construct

**Author's Note:**

> GRATUITOUS NACHT/GRAVES PORN, possible spoilers, don't read until you're done Graves's route, etc., i'm very glad someone else posted explicit hustle cat fic before me, thank you
> 
> also this takes place quite a bit before the game!

Nacht drifts in and out of Graves’s life like a stray.

So Graves isn’t particularly surprised to find him slouched in a crouch on his doorstep one night, the barbed wire edge of his grin greeting him. The plastic bag holding his dinner crinkles in his grasp, and for a brief, irrational moment, he considers turning on his heel and going back to the restaurant to eat. 

“Still livin’ on takeout? That ain’t good for your health,” says Nacht, pushing himself to his feet in one long roll of his body. 

Too late. Graves hooks the handles onto his wrist, and opens the door. “Hello, Nacht,” he says, with the barest modicum of politeness, shuffling into his house sideways. “Goodbye.” 

“Hey, now.” Nacht grabs the door, holding it open with one hand. “What a way to treat an old friend of yours! Not gonna invite me in?” 

The air tastes like metal. Nacht looms, oppressive and too tall and backlit by the moon. Graves doesn’t need to see his face to know what kind of expression he’s wearing. Doesn’t need to see his own face to know it’s torn with indecision. He shuts his eyes, and breathes out. Opens them again and pins Nacht down with his stare. Everything he could and should say remains jammed in his throat, the words choking him. 

“I’m afraid I won’t be a very good host.” His knuckles are white on the doorknob. “You see, I’ve only gotten dinner for one.” 

“Ain’t no problem,” Nacht says, teeth bared in a grin. “Already ate.” 

The perpetually hungry gleam to his eyes remains nonetheless; by now, Graves is so used to it that he barely notices it, never mind pointing out. Instead, he lets the door swing open, waiting for Nacht to enter before shutting it behind him. Better to have him where he can keep watch on him, if he has to have him at all.

Nacht heads straight for the kitchen, with Graves following slowly. He’s ransacking his fridge, opening the cupboards and clucking his tongue, shaking his head at their lack of contents. Graves sets his food on the breakfast nook; it’s the closest thing to a proper dining table he has, and hovers. Slowly, he folds himself into his seat. 

“Would’a cooked a nice meal for you if there was anythin’ to use,” Nacht remarks, dropping down in the seat opposite of Graves in a sprawl of limbs. “Should’a remembered your bad habits-- but you got too many of ‘em to count!” 

“I wasn’t aware I would have company,” Graves answers. So that’s what Nacht was doing. Nacht is watching him as he opens up the plastic containers. Eating in the presence of company and having nothing to offer them grates on him, but he doubts Nacht even cares. He wonders briefly if he ought to offer to share.

“Priss,” Nacht scoffs, when Graves spreads a napkin over his lap, smoothing it down. Graves immediately retracts his unvoiced offer mentally. But for a second, Graves can almost close his eyes and pretend-- “Can’t exactly give you fair warning, what with you avoidin’ me lately.” 

“I haven’t been doing anything of the sort,” trips reflexively off of Graves’s tongue. 

“Liar.” 

But that’s the last thing he says, and Graves passes his meal in relative silence. The weight of Nacht’s stare isn’t enough to quench his appetite; besides, he’s used to it by now. It’s the silence that bothers him. Smothers him. There’s the rustle of the takeout bag being stashed in a drawer with tens of others. The scrape of leftovers into the compost. The quiet thump of the carton landing in the bottom of the trash. The trickle of water as Graves washes his hands at the sink. 

There’s nothing of Nacht. No endless babble of talk, the curl of his vowels overwrought and letters dropped at will. No slow rumble of it filling up his space. Briefly, irrationally, Graves wonders if when he turns around, he'd find Nacht gone, that Nacht had never been here at all. 

Quiet. Then--

“I wanted t’see you,” says Nacht, suddenly at Graves’s back, his arms sliding around his waist. 

Graves goes stiff.

“Don't be so cold,” Nacht mumbles into the nape of his neck, the words spilling hot over skin. Graves works to suppress the shiver that rolls down his spine. Instead, he turns and faces Nacht. Raising one hand, he smooths it along his bicep, and up to cup his face firmly. 

“Why are you here, Nacht?” he asks. 

Nacht’s eyelashes are curtains half drawn over his eyes, but it isn’t enough to hide the metallic glint in them. “Dumb question.” 

“You have to stop this.” 

“Don’t see why.” Nacht leans his head into Graves’s palm. Graves should’ve never let him in past the front door. 

“It’s destroying you,” Graves says. I’m destroying you, goes unsaid. 

“There ya go, worrying your pretty li’l head over nothing. I can take care of myself, don’t you worry. ‘s’all under control.” 

“Under control? What part of this is “under control”, exactly?” Relinquishing his grip on him, Graves frowns. 

“Gotta give you somethin’ better t’do with your mouth,” is the only warning Nacht gives, then he’s closing his mouth over Graves’s, kissing him with a gentleness that belies his entire demeanor, the crowd of his body against Graves’s what keeps him pinned to the sink. 

Iron and copper, metal seeps in like corrosion. Graves hasn’t bitten himself, nor has Nacht deigned to use his teeth, kissing him like he might spook at any moment. Graves bites. Nacht hisses a laugh. Blood trickles down his chin, filling the cracks between his teeth when Nacht pursues him, abandoning his courtesy in favour of indulging his hunger, fierce in the way he mouths at Graves, intrusive in his kissing. 

Nacht shoves his hands down Graves’s pants, thumbing at his hips. His touch burns like a brand, and Graves is stumbling, grasping at the granite countertop for purchase. 

“Steady, kitten,” Nacht rumbles from waist level. Graves wants to say something, wants to tell him not to call him that. To tell him that he’s ruining the crease of his trousers, yanked down as they are halfway down his thighs. But his head is spinning, heady and heavy, breath laboured as Nacht takes him into his mouth. Squirming, Graves makes a half-hearted attempt to push him away, but already he’s fallen into a familiar rhythm. 

The judicious application of teeth at his cock freezes him, along with the heavy weight of his palms smoothing along his sides, keeping Graves anchored. He makes a strangled sound at the back of his throat, and for a brief, irrational moment if Nacht means to rob him of yet something else. 

“I thought…” he starts, voice unsteady, the question slipping from him unbidden in half hysteria, “I thought you said you ate already.” 

That gives Nacht a pause, withdrawing with a lick of his lips and a sharp bark of laughter. “I’ve always got an appetite for you.”

Graves flushes with a startled burst of laughter despite himself. For an instant, he’s back in college again and Nacht is leveling the full force of his attention at him, needling him with clever words in that laid-back drawl, getting completely under his skin and then into his bed. The laughter quickly dissolves into another moan, his hips canting upwards. Nacht’s mouth is hot on him, and Graves think, maybe it’s better to pretend. 

Pretend that the now is of a simpler time. A time before everything went to hell, a time when things were normal-- as normal as anything with Nacht could be. Or to stop thinking altogether. Graves leans back against the counter with his forearms crossed over his eyes, trying not to think. It’s harder than it should be, even with Nacht’s fingers digging into him (they’ll leave bruises in the morning), sucking every little hurt sound from Graves. He swallows him down impossibly deep, running his tongue along the underside of his cock. 

Nacht can be selfish; having him on his knees for Graves is a rarity in itself. He’s-- enthusiastic in his endeavours, taking what he wants in the same manner with which he does everything else he’s ever set his mind to. But Graves can’t turn his brain off. Can’t stop thinking, and it doesn’t take long for Nacht to notice. 

He redoubles his efforts until Graves is forced to wind his fingers through his hair, writhing in his grasp. 

“Nacht,” Graves finally gasps, and the word tastes like surrender on his tongue. “ _Nacht._ ”

A hum in reply; the quiet filled up with a different kind of conversation. Body talks. The whimpers that Graves can’t quite conceal, and the low, satisfied, rumble from Nacht, who looks far too smug for a man with his lips wrapped around someone else’s dick. He squeezes Graves’s ass, teases at the head of his cock with his tongue. A warmth is beginning to overtake Graves, the deep pool of it gathered low in his stomach. 

No complaint on Nacht’s end to stifle it either. Not even when Graves moves of his own initiative, shallowly fucking his mouth. Nacht is making a production of it, Graves finds, when he’s unable to resist opening his eyes and peering down only to find Nacht staring back at him. His eyes are bright, and he looks as though he’d be laughing were it possible. It’s unbearably, impossibly _Nacht_. 

So is the obscene slurp that follows, the flashy and seemingly impossible depth with which he swallows Graves down, until he has no choice but to come apart at the seams, curling in on himself protectively. He quakes-- Nacht is relentless, taking and taking until Graves has nothing left to give. Were it not for the support of the counter behind him, his knees would have given long ago. 

Nacht licks his lips clean, and then wipes at the corner of his mouth with his thumb after for good measure. He presses a kiss to the inside of Graves’s thigh with an awful tenderness. Graves can’t do much more than struggle for air, staring blearily down at Nacht. His heart is pounding.

“There ya go. Not so wound up anymore, are you?” Nacht drawls. 

Insufferable. Graves musters himself enough to glare at him, but finds himself more mollified than he ought to be. “Given that I wasn’t forced to listen to you speak certainly helped.”

“That sharp tongue o’ yours is the same as ever!” laughs Nacht. “I didn’t hear you complaining ‘bout my mouth earlier.” 

“You’ve never--” Graves is cut off by Nacht hoisting him up and over his shoulder in a fireman’s carry, arm wrapped firmly over the back of Graves’s knees. Scrambling for purchase, Graves grabs at Nacht’s shirt, desperate not to fall. “Nacht! Put me down right this instance!” 

“Nah,” Nacht says, easy and smug. “‘less you wanna do it right here?” 

Mouth snapping shut, Graves lets himself be manhandled down the hall and into his room, losing his pants along the way. He’s beyond caring about the wrinkles that are sure to set in by the time he gets around to picking them back up, fuming and mortified. There are few indignities greater than picking a fight with someone while half naked. 

Dracula streaks out of the room as they enter with a loud yowl, Nacht’s eyes tracking her as she leaves. Graves wonders if she’s right. This sentimentality of his can’t be kicked, this sense of responsibility he’s holding himself to unyielding. Why can’t he bring himself to move on? 

The gentleness with which he’s deposited on his bed might have something to do with it. So does the hand that sweeps over his brow, thumb smoothing the wrinkles that have formed there away. Graves can’t decide whether it’s preferable or not to their more antagonistic reconciliations. At least he would be within reason to be angry then. At least he would know whether he ought to be on his guard. (Of course he should be; he should've been from the first time he caught the slip, should've seen the signs for what it was. But he had been so young, then.)

“Quit thinkin’ so hard,” Nacht says. He’s leaning over Graves, features half shadowed in the dim light. Graves keeps the lamp by his bed on a low setting for Dracula. Her eyes aren’t what they used to be.

“As opposed to not thinking?” Graves musters, hooking his fingers into the soft cotton of Nacht’s shirt, giving it a yank. “I’m not you.” 

Nacht snorts, and doesn’t budge. “Y’know what I mean.” 

Graves goes quiet, contemplative. “I can’t help but wonder why I continuously fail to rid myself of you.” 

“Now, why would you wanna go ‘n’ do somethin’ like that?”

“You and I both know the answer to that.” 

Cheeky, Nacht rolls his hips against Graves’s bent leg, obviously hard. “Can’t say we don’t have great chemistry.”

Pulling himself up at the expense of stretching out the poor quality cotton shirt Nacht is wearing, Graves kisses the tender underside of Nacht’s jaw. In between the meeting of their mouths, Graves maneuvers himself until he’s not quite straddling his lap, knees on either side of Nacht. Nacht strokes his hand up Graves’s chest until his thumb smudges over the hollow of his throat, splaying out over it. His heart jumps up to join it.

“You’ve always held yourself in high esteem,” Graves says, finally. He lets Nacht touch as he pleases, tipping his head to one side when the hand at his throat turns into two fingers brushing over his mouth. 

“‘cos I'm that good,” drawls Nacht, self-assured and keen on the slip of Graves’s tongue over the pad of his fingers. It’s with an air of reluctance that he withdraws the arm possessively wound around Graves’s waist in favour of undoing his belt and pants, holding his cock casually in one hand. Nothing Graves hasn’t seen before. So he ignores it in favour of sucking on the digits rubbing at the inside of his mouth, the heat of them overwhelming. 

Twining his hands through Nacht’s hair, Graves groans, the sound muffled and disjointed as Nacht shoves their hips together, grinding against Graves. It’s unfairly, obscenely good, the friction of his cock on Nacht’s, and the rough way Nacht curls his hand around them in a fist, pumping in a lazy tandem to his thrusts. 

Nacht catches his tongue between his index and middle finger, Graves struggling to free it for a moment before opening his eyes to narrow them at him (when did they close?), brow furrowing at the smirk spread across his handsome features. He nips at them none too gently as they withdraw, slick with spit. 

“Got ‘em nice and wet,” Nacht says. Graves’s frown deepens, and he opens his mouth to make a caustic reply in return. Nacht beats him to it. “Up.” 

The yearning he's never quite managed to placate, the hot flush of need that burns inside of him, must show clear as day on his face, because Nacht doesn't wait for Graves to move. Already he's slowed down, still obviously hard and wanting-- but for something else. His fingers probe and slide into Graves without preamble. 

Graves hisses, yanking at Nacht’s hair in consternation. He has to force himself to relax. “I do _not_ appreciate that.”

“Mm? Ah, my bad. Forgot ya don’t actually have something stuck up there all the time.” Still, Nacht doesn’t let up. “Always remembered you liking it a l’il rough.” 

Nacht isn’t wrong, which is the aggravating part of it. But Graves knows they won’t get anywhere with the faintest modicum of comfort like this, so he ignores the grunt from Nacht as he leans the entirety of his weight on him, stretching to fetch the lube hidden away in the nightstand drawer. Nacht accepts it with a gravelly laugh, slathering his fingers up deliberately for Graves to see. 

“There’s a difference between enjoying a little extra stimulation and craving pain,” Graves informs him, haughty. He doesn’t tell him that one would have been fine, rather than both at the same time.

“Don’t see why you can’t have both,” Nacht says. “Seems t’me like you could anything ya wanted. Just gotta take it.” 

Graves doesn’t get a chance to point out everything wrong about that, or to have any further debate at all, not with Nacht’s mouth pressing insistently on his again, swallowing his words. The hitch of his breath as Nacht opens him up, and his own palm slick around himself, touching in time to the thrust of Nacht’s fingers. Pushing his hands under Nacht’s shirt, he rakes his nails down the expanse of his back, half out of a petty desire to carve something of himself onto Nacht the same way he has on Graves, but more so because it’s an extension of the pleasure clawing itself out of his stomach, extending down all of his limbs. 

Sweat starts to form a sheen on his skin, his hair sticking to his face. Nacht is getting impatient, he can tell-- he’s biting at Graves’s neck, sucking marks along pale skin, and then he’s lining up his cock, Graves easing down on it. His eyes have slid shut, and he’s left only privy to the heavy, ragged edge of Nacht’s breathing, along with his own sharp inhale. The rough fabric of Nacht’s pants rub at his thighs.

Nacht has his hands on his waist, grip digging in a little too tightly like he’s afraid Graves will somehow vanish were he to ease up. It’s a ridiculous thought, for Nacht isn’t scared of anything. Graves rearranges the thought to a more appropriate conclusion: like a child who won’t give up his favourite plaything. 

The image prickles at him. It gets under his skin and twists his mouth into a skewed line, but he doesn’t have time to linger on it as Nacht starts to roll his hips, rocking into him at a steady, steady pace. Filled to the brim and stretched too full, something wells up in Graves, acidic and burning the back of his throat. He swallows it down, burying his face in the junction of Nacht’s neck and shoulder, mouthing at it, even as he moves in rhythm with Nacht. Somewhere along the way, Nacht loses his shirt, and throws Graves’s off to the side with a certain relish to join his. 

“Bein’ awfully quiet today,” Nacht comments. 

“Mm,” Graves says.

“Bad manners, innit? For me t’be makin’ you do all the work when you’re,” a pause, punctuated with a final, “tired.” 

And underlined by the sudden shift in gravity, Nacht shoving Graves onto his back, Graves yelping in abject, embarrassing surprise. It dissolves into a long moan as Nacht pushes his thighs apart and fucks back into him relentlessly. Hands scrabbling at the sheets, Graves gropes for purchase and finds none. Nacht’s eyes are bright and intent on his face, Graves laid bare before him. It isn’t unfamiliar. Nacht has always liked to do more than his fair share of staring, and Graves-- well, he’s found it strangely flattering. 

Not much time left for introspection when Nacht shifts angles, and suddenly Graves is seeing white, toes curling and spine arching off the bed, twisting endlessly and cat-like. Nacht is laughing again, chuffs of laughter that warm Graves’s neck, distracting him from the hands skimming over his sides, but not detracting from how they wrap around his cock, just a little too tightly. Nacht thumbs roughly at the slit of his cock, Graves jerking into the touch with a gasp.

The sheets are sticking to his skin, Graves’s heels digging into Nacht’s back, legs wrapped around his waist, all of his carefully schooled control crumbling. A small mercy-- Nacht is fervent in claiming his mouth, and every little whine and whimper is muffled by the press of his lips. The split at his bottom lip from where Graves bit him earlier is oozing blood sluggishly, smearing between them.

“Hold up, kitten,” Nacht rumbles in his ear when Graves begins to come apart. He circles his fingers at the base of Graves’s dick, and Graves makes several, vocal sounds of protest at that, eyes flying open. “Not yet.” 

“Don't call me that,” Graves starts, "Let me," and Nacht shushes him, grinding implacably inside him. “ _Nacht._

If nothing else, Nacht is generous in the attention he lavishes on him; thrusting with a terrible precision and gauging Graves’s reaction, wincing with delight as Graves draws crescent moons filled with blood on his arms. Graves is twisted up into knots, ready to go apart from the fact that he _can’t_. 

Then Nacht is biting at his mouth and Graves thinks he hears the low grumble of his own name in his ear, but the pleasure crashing over him in waves distracts him from that. Nacht wrings him for all he’s worth, stilling only after he’s finished. 

Lying there in the half dark, with Nact’s body bearing down on him, Graves listens to the uneven rasp of their breathing. He’s spent and Nacht, with his endless energy, is equally abated for the moment.

In time, Graves squirms enough so that Nacht pulls out, but immediately anchors his arm over Graves in a dead weight, crushing their bodies together. They fit together imperfectly but perfectly. Nacht buries his nose against the nape of his neck, mouthing at it without any apparent reason other than because he can, and Graves dozes. He’ll have to change the sheets later, and possibly several times again over the course of the next little while. It’s a pattern that inevitably emerges at the same time Nacht decides to resurface in his life, and Graves, helpless to him(self), succumbs. 

With a jolt, Graves yanks himself into an upright position. He nearly makes it off the bed, but Nacht reels him back in as easily as anything. 

“Goin’ somewhere?” His voice suggests that Graves shouldn’t be.

“Dracula,” Graves says in way of explanation. “I’ve forgotten her dinner.” 

The mattress-- it’s a very nice mattress-- barely shifts beneath Nacht’s weight as he stretches and rolls himself off of it, scratching his stomach. He absently pats Graves on the head, padding out of the room. Calling over his shoulder, he says, “I got it. Bet ya can’t walk too good right now anyway.” 

“Whose fault is that?” Graves says at the empty doorway, l’esprit d’escalier only because of Nacht’s exit. He remains seated at the edge of his bed for another two minutes, listening to the sound of Nacht clattering around his kitchen, likely throwing all of his belongings into disarray. Dracula’s meows are as indistinct as the rise and fall of Nacht’s voice, though he picks up a few choices words-- _princess, dinner, there’s a good girl_ \-- among others. 

Graves is clean and under the covers by the time Nacht returns, head turned towards the window. Feigning sleep. Or rather, trying to sleep, fatigue tugging at him. Nacht slides in beside him, the warmth and bulk and complete lack of clothing on him immediately obvious in the bed. As is the arm he throws over Graves. 

“How ‘bout another round?” Nacht asks, the self satisfaction evident in his tone. 

“I think not.” Graves curls his fingers around his wrist, but lets it rest at his stomach. No further. 

“Aw, c’mon. ‘s still early.” His hand flexes and splays. Graves squeezes his wrist in warning. Nacht _hmms_ and _hawws_. “Five minutes.”

“This topic isn’t open to negotiations.”

“Seven.”

“I’m going to sleep, Nacht.” 

A beat. Then, “Gettin’ harder to get it up? Ten minutes. Could even give ya a hand.” 

“My refractory period is _fi_ \-- I refuse to discuss this with you.” 

“Killjoy,” Nacht says lazily, biting down on Graves’s neck right after and promptly ignoring all of his protests in favour of removing every article of clothing Graves put back on. 

Later, when the sheets have been thoroughly rumpled again and Graves feels the winded urgency of his lungs returning to normalcy, he ignores the ache of exertion in his limbs dragging him towards sleep. Nacht is already dead to the world beside him, and Graves takes the chance to study his face. 

He looks peaceful in repose, hair mussed out of order and tumbled around his face. Younger. The line of his brow is smooth, though a shadow of a smirk remains caught on his mouth. Graves has known Nacht for years, and that countenance of his hasn’t changed one bit. It remains aggravating, a point of contention and a sore spot, but-- 

But.

Graves brushes the back of his fingers across Nacht’s cheek. Nacht doesn’t stir. In the quiet and darkness of his room, Graves deems it safe to admit,

“I wanted to see you too.”

**Author's Note:**

> i'm dedicating this one to you know who, you know who you are


End file.
